The New York police officers who fatally shot a knife-wielding man after he escaped arrest near Times Square did what they were trained to do, city officials and experts on police procedure said Sunday.

Two officers fired 12 shots at the man, Darrius H. Kennedy, after he ignored their orders on Saturday to drop the long kitchen knife he had been waving as he skipped backward down Seventh Avenue, frightening the tourists wandering around on a summer day, police officials said. At least seven of those bullets hit Mr. Kennedy, including three shots to the chest, the police said.

Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said that he thought “the police responded appropriately” and that the number of rounds the officers fired was not unusual. Police officials said officers tried six times to subdue Mr. Kennedy with pepper spray, without effect. None of the officers at the scene had Tasers or other stun guns, the police said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg agreed with Mr. Kelly, saying the officers “probably acted in responsible ways” in trying to stop “somebody who must have been mentally deranged.” He added that “taking a knife and going after other people, particularly police officers, isn’t something that a sane person would do.”

Police officials said they did not know whether Mr. Kennedy, 51, had a history of mental troubles. But they said that in October 2008, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation after he was found knocking over garbage cans in Times Square. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said he did not know the results of that evaluation.

A month later, in November 2008, Mr. Kennedy was arrested near Lincoln Center after he threatened to harm police officers with a screwdriver when they tried to stop him from harassing drivers on Broadway, Mr. Browne said. He was sentenced to 40 days in jail for resisting arrest.

Mr. Kennedy had not had any run-ins with the New York City police since then, according to Mr. Browne. He said the police believed that Mr. Kennedy had been unemployed but did not know where he had been living. The last known address for him was in Hempstead, on Long Island.

Marcus Bryan, 27, who sells self-produced CDs in Times Square, said he had spoken several times to the man who was shot on Saturday, though he did not know his name. He said the man would dress up as a ninja, in black clothing with a black mask, and do back flips for tips.

Photo

The confrontation occurred on Seventh Avenue.Credit
Lincoln Rocha

Keith Watson, 31, who was selling tickets to a comedy club, also identified the man who was shot as “the Times Square ninja,” but did not know his name. “He’s never had an actual blade before,” Mr. Watson said. “It was a play sword. He’s a regular here.”

An aunt of Mr. Kennedy’s, Mary Johnson, said by phone that she had not noticed anything out of the ordinary when her nephew visited her home in Hempstead in June. She said he had been living in Manhattan in recent years, doing odd jobs like cleaning buildings.

Ms. Johnson was critical of the police. “This could have been handled in a different way,” she said. “It doesn’t take 12 or 15 bullets to kill a horse, so it wouldn’t take that many to kill a person.”

The episode — bizarre even by the standards of Times Square — sent tourists running for cover (or their cellphone cameras), but nobody other than Mr. Kennedy was in danger of being shot, Mr. Browne said. He said that no police officers or civilians were in the line of fire when the two officers shot their 9-millimeter pistols from close range.

By that point, the police had backed Mr. Kennedy up to the entrance of an office building on Seventh Avenue near 37th Street and had hemmed him in with a patrol car parked perpendicular to the sidewalk, Mr. Browne said. The two officers in that car jumped out and ordered Mr. Kennedy to drop his weapon, a nearly foot-long kitchen knife with a six-inch blade.

When he moved within three feet of the officers, still holding the knife, the police said, they let loose a burst of bullets, drawing gasps from the rapt witnesses. Some of them had trailed the police down the avenue, capturing the drama in photographs and video.

One officer fired nine shots, and the other fired three, Mr. Browne said. He added that neither officer previously fired a weapon in the line of duty.

A version of this article appears in print on August 13, 2012, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Officials Defend Fatal Shooting of a Knife-Wielding Man Near Times Sq. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe